Israeli reserve officers announced their rejection of military service under a “non -democratic government”, accusing the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Insist on continuing the war for personal goals and political gains.
The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted a petition signed by 41 reserve officers. Their demand is that Netanyahu and the Minister of Defense Israel Katz And members of the government and the chief of staff Eyal Zemir By concluding a deal to exchange and end the Gaza war.
The officers announced the rejection of service under a “anti -democratic and illegal government that chooses eternal war at the expense of the prisoners.” “When the government operates on foreign motives, its orders are clearly illegal, and it is our duty not to comply with them,” the signatories added.
The signatories said that they will not continue to serve the “Netanyahu’s survival war”, noting that while some of them will announce it, others will work in other ways they described as “gray disobedience”. They emphasized that this is a difficult but necessary statement. “We refuse to see our brothers and sisters lose their lives in vain.”
The officers attacked the decision to expand the war, considering that its goal is to keep the political coalition of the Netanyahu government, not to defend Israel.
The petition stated that the government abandoned the detainees in the Gaza Strip and destroyed the deal to return them, and that the bombing of the Israeli army killed many of them.
The signatories emphasized that “the consequences of the continuation of the war are pre -known: Israeli Defense Army soldiers will be sent to murder and murder in vain, and our prisoners who are still alive in the families agitationThey stressed that “the current government lost public and moral legitimacy. According to each poll, a minor government, which led to the October 7 disaster, has strengthened Hamas for years, dismantled the state mechanisms, and instead of assuming responsibility, the Israeli Defense Army pulled into an unnecessary eternal war, while causing serious harm to democracy, state security and citizens.
The newspaper said that the signers of the letter are 41 officers and soldiers in the reserve units of the intelligence and cyber war, including 28 who served during the past year, 3 belonging to the reserve unit, but they have not yet been called in the current year, and 8 soldiers who served at the beginning of the war.
Yedioth Ahronoth conveyed the statements of an officer who chose Raki as a pseudonym, and said that he was a captain that has completed about 150 days of reserve service during the war, and he was among the signs of the message. “This war causes tremendous damage to the lives of humans and innocents. There are nearly 20 thousand children dead. It is a war that I cannot continue to participate in morally,” Raai said.
He added that the Netanyahu government “is ready to sacrifice the kidnappers for unclear targets. The occupation of Gaza? The expulsion of two million people? For purely political reasons. This serves an ideology that is not ready to support it. It leads to the perception that Gaza residents are not human, and that they do not deserve food and medical treatment. For me, I am not ready to know that I am participating in the atrocities that occur in Gaza.”
This is not the first case in which Israeli soldiers refuse to return to the war in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks for several reasons, including extreme exhaustion, and the certainty that the war does not serve the interests of Israel but rather personal interests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu required for the criminal court for war crimes.